Staff Pick
In this stunning masterpiece, Dostoevsky weaves together a murder mystery, a psychological thriller, and a taut courtroom drama with religious ideas, observations about family dysfunction, and some blistering social commentary. Absolutely brilliant! Recommended By Dianah H., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
The award-winning translation of Dostoevsky's last and greatest novel. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky were awarded the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Translation Prize for The Brothers Karamazov and have also translated Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, Notes from Underground, Demons, and The Idiot.
Winner of the PEN/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize
This translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky remains true to the verbal inventiveness of Dostoevsky's prose, preserving the multiple voices, the humor, and the surprising modernity of the original.
The Brothers Karamazov is a murder mystery, a courtroom drama, and an exploration of erotic rivalry in a series of triangular love affairs involving the "wicked and sentimental" Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov and his three sonsimpulsive and sensual Dmitri; the coldly rational Ivan; and the healthy, red-cheeked young novice Alyosha. Through the gripping events of their story, Dostoevsky portrays the whole of Russian life, its social and spiritual strivings, in what was both the golden age and a tragic turning point in Russian culture.
"This acclaimed English version of Dostoevsky's magnificent last novel does justice to all its levels of artistry and intention: as murder mystery, black comedy, pioneering work of psychological realism, and enduring statement about freedom, sin, and suffering . . . [The translators] come as close to Dostoevsky's Russian as possible."Joseph Frank, Princeton University
"[Dostoevsky is] at once the most literary and compulsively readable of novelists we continue to regard as great . . . The Brothers Karamazov stands as the culmination of his arthis last, longest, richest and most capacious book. [This] scrupulous rendition can only be welcomed. It returns to us a work we thought we knew, subtly altered and so made new again."Donald Fanger, Washington Post Book World
"It may well be that Dostoevsky's [world], with all its resourceful energies of life and language, is only nowand through the medium of [this] new translationbeginning to come home to the English-speaking reader."John Bayley, The New York Review of Books
"This acclaimed English version of Dostoevsky's magnificent last novel does justice to all its levels of artistry and intention: as murder mystery, black comedy, pioneering work of psychological realism, and enduring statement about freedom, sin, and suffering . . . [The translators] come as close to Dostoevsky's Russian as possible."Joseph Frank, Princeton University
"Far and away the best translation of Dostoevsky into English that I have seen . . . faithful . . . extremely readable . . . gripping."Sidney Monas, University of Texas
"Absolutely faithful . . . Fulfills in remarkable measure most of the criteria for an ideal translation . . . The stylistic accuracy and versatility of registers used [by Pevear and Volokhonsky] bring out the richness and depth of the original in a way similiar to a fitful and sensitive restoration of a painting."The Independent (London)
"No reader who knows The Brothers Karamazov should ignore this magnificent translation. And no reader who doesn't should wait any longer to acquaint himself with one of the peaks of modern fiction."USA Today
Review
"It may well be that Dostoevsky's world, with all its resourceful energies of life and language, is only now and through the medium of this translation beginning to come home to the English-speaking reader." The New York Review of Books
Review
"The Brothers Karamazov stands as the culmination of his art his last, longest, richest and most capacious book. [This] scrupulous rendition can only be welcomed. It returns to us a work we thought we knew, subtly altered and so made new again." Washington Post Book World
Synopsis
The award-winning translation of Dostoevsky's last and greatest novel.
Synopsis
Winner of the Pen/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize
The Brothers Karamasov is a murder mystery, a courtroom drama, and an exploration of erotic rivalry in a series of triangular love affairs involving the "wicked and sentimental" Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov and his three sons--the impulsive and sensual Dmitri; the coldly rational Ivan; and the healthy, red-cheeked young novice Alyosha. Through the gripping events of their story, Dostoevsky portrays the whole of Russian life, is social and spiritual striving, in what was both the golden age and a tragic turning point in Russian culture.
This award-winning translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky remains true to the verbal
inventiveness of Dostoevsky's prose, preserving the multiple voices, the humor, and the surprising modernity of the original. It is an achievement worthy of Dostoevsky's last and greatest novel.
Synopsis
Winner of the Pen/Book-of-the-Month Club Translation Prize
The award-winning translation of Fyodor Dostoevsky's classic novel of psychological realism.
The Brothers Karamasov is a murder mystery, a courtroom drama, and an exploration of erotic rivalry in a series of triangular love affairs involving the "wicked and sentimental" Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov and his three sons--the impulsive and sensual Dmitri; the coldly rational Ivan; and the healthy, red-cheeked young novice Alyosha. Through the gripping events of their story, Dostoevsky portrays the whole of Russian life, is social and spiritual striving, in what was both the golden age and a tragic turning point in Russian culture.
This award-winning translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky remains true to the verbal
inventiveness of Dostoevsky's prose, preserving the multiple voices, the humor, and the surprising modernity of the original. It is an achievement worthy of Dostoevsky's last and greatest novel.
Synopsis
Dostoevsky's last and greatest novel,
The Karamazov Brothers (1880), is both a brilliantly told crime story and a passionate philosophical debate. The dissolute landowner Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov is murdered; his sons the atheist intellectual Ivan, the hot-blooded Dmitry, and the saintly novice Alyosha are all at some level involved. Bound up with this intense family drama is Dostoevsky's exploration of many deeply felt ideas about the existence of God, the question of human freedom, the collective nature of guilt, the disastrous consequences of rationalism.
The novel is also richly comic: the Russian Orthodox Church, the legal system, and even the author's most cherished causes and beliefs are presented with a note of irreverence, so that orthodoxy and radicalism, sanity and madness, love and hatred, right and wrong are no longer mutually exclusive. Rebecca West considered it "the allegory for the world's maturity, but with children to the fore." This new translation does full justice to Dostoevsky's genius, particularly in the use of the spoken word, which ranges over every mode of human expression.
Synopsis
The award-winning translation of Dostoevsky's last and greatest novel. Synopsis
The award-winning translation of Dostoevsky's last and greatest novel. About the Author
Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky is considered one of the greatest of Russian writers, whose works have had a profound and lasting effect on twentieth-century fiction.
Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky were awarded the PEN/ Book-of-the-Month Translation Prize for The Brothers Karamazov and have also translated Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, Notes from Underground, Demons, and The Idiot.